When it comes to making it in real estate, resilience is often a prerequisite. Long hours, high-stakes negotiations, and the emotional weight of helping people buy and sell homes demand sharp focus and stamina. But what happens when those qualities—clarity, confidence, and drive—begin to erode, not because of burnout or lack of ambition, but because of biology?
Karen Roy has lived this question and she’s built a career around answering it.
Roy, a real estate agent since 2019 and more than 35 years of corporate experience, is part of a growing movement asking why the industry still pretends menopause doesn’t exist. Her response isn’t polite tiptoeing, it’s radical reframing. Menopause, she argues, isn’t a detour from leadership. It’s a fast track to a different kind of success built on self-awareness, internal alignment, and sustainable energy.
Breaking the Silence in an Industry That Rewards Hustle
Roy didn’t start out trying to become a thought leader on midlife performance. But in 2014, when she entered perimenopause, no additional training as a lifestyle nutrition coach or a Pilates instructor prepared her for the mental fog, physical exhaustion, or identity shift that followed.
What prepared her? Curiosity. “The problem wasn’t just that I felt off,” Roy says. “The problem was that no one around me was talking about it, even though every woman I knew was dealing with something similar.” She started digging into the science, experimenting with lifestyle changes, and eventually earned certifications that helped her understand the hormonal landscape of midlife from a performance lens.
Real Estate Agents Are Especially Vulnerable to Midlife Burnout
Roy’s work is particularly relevant to women in real estate, a field where the lines between personal energy and professional output are notoriously thin. There are no sick days when your income depends on being available, alert, and likable. It’s an industry that rewards hustle and often penalizes pause.
“Real estate is often romanticized as flexible, but it’s really about being constantly ‘on,’” Roy explains. “For women going through menopause, that’s a recipe for burnout unless you understand how to adjust your approach.” Her coaching programs and public talks focus on exactly that: how to recognize hormonal shifts not as setbacks, but as signals to reassess systems, rhythms, and expectations.
The CLEAN Method: A Framework for Thriving, Not Just Surviving
Out of her personal journey and professional reinvention came the CLEAN Method, a five-step approach designed to help women realign their lives during perimenopause and beyond. It’s not a wellness detox or quick fix. Instead, it’s a blueprint for sustainable clarity and performance, particularly for women in demanding industries like real estate.
“What I teach isn’t about stepping away from your ambition,” Roy says. “It’s about recalibrating your body and your business to work together, not against each other.” Her programs emphasize the connection between physiology and productivity, encouraging women to track energy patterns, understand metabolic shifts, and embrace recovery as a strategic move, not a sign of weakness.
Reframing Menopause as a Professional Advantage
If burnout and self-doubt are common among midlife agents, Roy argues that menopause awareness could be their competitive edge. “When you start working with your biology instead of ignoring it, everything shifts; your decision-making improves, your relationships deepen, your focus sharpens,” she says. “These are leadership qualities. We’ve just been taught to compartmentalize them.”
Her latest book, “I’m Not Crazy, You’re Not Crazy, It’s Menopause—A Girlfriend’s Guide to Survive,” is part memoir, part manual, and entirely unfiltered. It’s not written for a niche audience; it’s for every woman who has ever sat in a team meeting wondering why her brain suddenly felt like scrambled eggs. And for every manager or colleague who doesn’t understand why their top producer suddenly seems off her game.
Toward a More Inclusive Definition of Performance
Roy isn’t asking the real estate industry to change overnight. But she is asking it to get honest. “Ignoring menopause doesn’t make it go away. It just drives good people out of the industry or keeps them playing small,” she says.
Her message lands at a time when leadership conversations are (finally) beginning to include topics like emotional intelligence, neurodiversity, and mental health. But menopause, Roy argues, is still the elephant in the room.
Her work doesn’t treat it as a liability. It treats it as a leadership inflection point, especially for women in real estate who know how much of their success hinges on being clear, confident, and in control of their energy.
“There’s nothing broken about you,” she says. “This is a phase. It’s powerful. And if you understand it, it can transform not just your body, but your business and career.”
Karen Roy’s message to real estate professionals isn’t about slowing down. It’s about showing up with intention, navigating change with strategy, and rewriting the rules of success for the second act of your career. Because thriving in real estate after 40 isn’t just possible, it might be where the real power begins.
For real estate power women who are ready to unlock a new level of success, visit www.notcrazyjustmenopause.com or connect with Karen Roy on Instagram to learn more about her programs. Karen Roy’s book “I’m Not Crazy, You’re Not Crazy, It’s Menopause—A Girlfriend’s Guide to Survive” is also available on Amazon to help you get started on your journey.
